


A Day's Work

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [303]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Conversations, Doctor Fingon, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Snippets, a day in the life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:29:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26674423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: Glimpses into a few hours.
Relationships: Caranthir | Morifinwë & Maedhros | Maitimo, Celegorm | Turcafinwë & Maedhros | Maitimo, Fingolfin | Ñolofinwë & Maedhros | Maitimo, Fingon | Findekáno & Maedhros | Maitimo, Maedhros | Maitimo & Maglor | Makalaurë
Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [303]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1300685
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	A Day's Work

Sometimes Caranthir prayed in English; sometimes in Irish; rarely in Latin. His embarrassment over every prayer could be seen in his flushed cheeks, yet, stolid as a bulldog, he did not cease murmuring or passing his beads through his fingers until his decades were done. This was usually at around seven o’clock in the morning. Maedhros was resting, then. The nightmares had fled with the night. Sometimes he slept in stuporous stillness; at other times he gazed upwards. He looked almost patient, at such times. He never prayed himself, but his uncle and his cousin and Caranthir, certainly, believed that the prayers did him good.

“Is there anything I could give you…any food you managed to stomach _there_ …”

“Have you bread with weevils in it?” Maedhros asked sweetly. “Fingon, it is not a matter of quality. You know that. You are giving me the best of everything. What little of heaven you can bring to earth, you make mine. It is only my body that cannot bear it.” He twitched the corners of his mouth: an admission and a challenge, perhaps, in one. “So.”

“Because you are damned?”

“My dear…you used to believe I was jesting, when I made ugly little sallies of that sort.”

“I used to believe a good many things,” Fingon said. He did not lift his sleeve to his eyes. There was no grief beyond the weary, gentle kind, which was written on his face and the face of almost every visitor to that room. He continued to pare the apple slowly.

His father had told him, at last, that Maedhros could not be forever kept from the sight of knives.

“Turgon is making grand progress on the wall,” Fingolfin said. “No doubt it shall soon be as tall as you.”

Maedhros nodded.

When Celegorm came, to chatter eagerly in some moods, and glower silently from his bench in others, Maedhros was at his most wakeful. With the passing of some weeks, Celegorm had begun to bring in curios of the outside world. These included pinecones, stones, spent seed-heads from grasses and flowers that were long since spent, and feathers.

Likely, he wanted to put them into Maedhros’ hand, that the thin fingers might learn to seek and feel again. But Celegorm didn't ask, and Maedhros rarely offered anyone a touch.

They all knew that ease and friendliness and comfort and peace had been stripped from him, long before Fingon’s knife took his right hand. It made their task no easier. They wanted to understand him differently, because they loved him. They wanted another life for him, both before and after their reunion. In short, they wanted all of it to be a nightmare gone with morning.

Celegorm, who had made a young life’s tireless study of observation, was not given to philosophy. He merely did not want to see the brother placed before his eyes.

He returned every day, nonetheless, to look at him.

“Perhaps it was foolish to let it grow so long,” Fingon said. “But I had no time to think of it, when we were—traveling. And then…Wachiwi showed me how to braid it with thread. The thread, you see, keeps it neat.”

“I do,” said Maedhros. His eyes had sparked a little at the mention of Wachiwi.

“And,” said Fingon bravely, “It is rather comfortable, in cold weather. Like a hat and muffler in one.”

“You speak often of Wachiwi,” Maedhros said. He had finished his porridge and had not coughed it up again. “I know Uncle told me about all the members of your company that I did not know, but I am addled. I have forgot.”

“Wachiwi!” exclaimed Fingon. “Oh, she was Haleth’s second, I suppose. But she chose to remain here.”

“A generous deed,” said Maedhros.

Maglor had some of Rumil’s paper, folded into an old leatherbound notebook. He was writing feverishly upon it, shaking his head with nervous exasperation whenever his hair slipped from behind his ears to vex him.

Up above, Maedhros watched him from half-closed eyes. His breathing came and went evenly.

“It’s done,” Maglor said, at last. Then, pettishly, and to nobody in particular, “But no one may see it.”

Fingon pressed his lips firmly together and turned away. It was half-past ten; the lamp ought to have been turned low an hour ago.

But Maedhros, when asked, had said he was not tired yet.

“I should not dream of prying, _cano_ ,” Maedhros said now. Then, to Fingon’s questioning glance, he replied, “I could sleep.”

One night, he woke with a single gasp. Fingon was at his side in a moment. Maglor was snoring; a gasp alone would not rouse him.

Maedhros’ left hand seized Fingon’s collar. He was mute, breathing strangely, while Fingon leaned close to ease him back against the pillows.

Then Fingon prised the twisted fingers from his shirt front and folded the hand flat between his own.

“Will you speak of it?”

“In the wood,” Maedhros murmured, his voice a pale ghost. “I—no. Fingon, it’s all over. All of it—gone. Why can’t I know it?”

“You know it now,” Fingon said, chafing Maedhros’ hand a little. He was kneeling upright; he had kicked aside his humble bedclothes. “You do, don’t you?”

“I have been too often foolish,” whispered Maedhros. “I have been full of fancies all my life. A poor habit—a very poor habit indeed, for a—a haunted invalid. _Blast_.”

Fingon’s smile was so old that he looked as Finwe might have, had Finwe suffered half so much. “Every new day is a triumph,” said Fingon. “And all fancies fade with time, I promise.”

One must believe that such words did them good.


End file.
